Business
Page: 410
The Music Performance Trust Fund (MPTF), established 75 years ago and still one of the industry’s best-kept secrets, has announced its funding support allocation for the upcoming fiscal year.
“We were going to go to $3 million and now we’re looking at moving it to $3.3 million from the fiscal year that begins May 1,” says MPTF Trustee Dan Beck. That’s up from the current fiscal year, when the Fund distributed over $2.7 million in grants.
The New York City-based non-profit supports a wide array of admission-free events and initiatives aimed at enriching lives and uniting communities through music. In April, the trust fund aims to support over 250 live music performances in celebration of Jazz Appreciation Month, and later will be partnering with local businesses and organizations in events celebrating Juneteenth, as well as providing support for the Chicago Lyric Opera, the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans, the Make Music Alliance and the Broadway League’s annual Curtains Up! event held in Times Square.
The MPTF receives funding from the three major labels, as well as Walt Disney Records, and works closely with the American Federation of Musicians (AFM).
The numbers from the fund’s current fiscal year, ending April 30, are impressive; across North America, it helped pay for 1,200 concerts in parks and public spaces, 400 music events at schools, over 1,000 performances at senior centers and over 1,300 live virtual music events. These 3,500-plus performances, covering all genres, drew over 1 million people in total across in-person and virtual events, according to the fund. All performances must be free to the audience, with MPTF paying union musicians for their work at these events.
Confirming this, Beck says, “They’re all free, and that’s a requirement that has been part of the trust fund since the beginning. It all has to be admission free, can’t be tied to any other material event or political rally or anything like that. It must be something that’s…for the good of the community and to get the musicians paid a fair wage.”
To receive funding for an event, local unions apply to the MPTF for a grant to stage a musical performance and line up a local sponsor to match the grant to provide a fair wage payment for the musicians performing. In some instances, MPTF approaches unions and offers a themed event concept to bring to their local markets, but in most cases, the unions and their matching grant partners choose which union musicians and events their efforts will back.
“A lot of times it’s the municipal government or the Parks Department, or an Arts Council in the local city” that co-sponsor events, says Beck, who has been with the fund for 10 years. Beck was president of V2 Records North America before the turn of the century and also spent over two decades with Epic Records prior to that, rising to senior vp of sales and marketing, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Beck says MPTF proactively supports local unions’ efforts to organize community performances. “We monitor the budget limits and rules and try to help the locals successfully access our funds equitably and fairly,” he says, adding that events funded by the organization run the gamut. “Some locals have 30 members. Others have thousands. We are working with full orchestras and solo musicians.”
The funding that the MPTF distributes to local unions in the United States and Canada comes from a negotiated agreement between the labels and the AFM known as the Sound Recording Labor Agreement. That agreement, based on the labels’ annual sales and streaming revenue, calls for those companies to funnel payments directly to three funds: the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund; the Sound Recording Special Payments Fund; and the Music Performance Trust Fund.
Beck is bullish about this year’s prospects. In addition to musical performances, the organization aims to fund over 500 music education programs in 2023-24 through partnerships with national and local organizations such as Save the Music and Young Audiences Arts for Learning. As part of its educational efforts, it will fund a minimum of $150,000 to be awarded to students in the fall of 2023 through its two scholarship programs, Music Family Scholarship and Music’s Future Scholarship. Last year, more than 90 Music Family Scholarships were given to AFM musicians with family members attending college, while 30 Music’s Future Scholarships went to music students unaffiliated with the union.
On the live performance front, the organization says it will bolster its signature national MusicianFest initiative that brings live music to senior citizens, a segment of society that has been strapped by fixed incomes, inflation, immobility and the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 virus.
While MPTF prefers the local unions to bring in a local funding partner, when the organization is trying to raise its funding distribution outlay, “we have selected certain times where we’ll go to the union locals and say, ‘Look, we will fund 100% if you have something for Black History Month,’” says Beck. For Juneteenth, MPTF did an event with Broadway League, funding a 12-piece band performance in Times Square. “Then we got to thinking about it and [said], ‘Hey, why don’t we take that and offer a Juneteenth event out to all the locals?’ And the response was just great,” Beck adds. “We’ll be doing that again; we will start that offer for Juneteenth literally the day after Jazz Appreciation Month ends.”
While things are looking good going forward, Beck says that MPTF faced major challenges when the pandemic hit — though Beck notes that it also created new opportunities for the fund, with livestreamed performances via Facebook coming to the rescue. “It didn’t matter what type of music someone played, we were able to crank up the livestream thing,” he says. “We have a small staff [of five], I was stunned that we could actually do it. Thankfully, our little grant management team that coordinates all the grants did a remarkable job working with each other. There are 175 union locals across North America, and we were generally working with half of them.”
Certainly, the parent umbrella union’s participation and support remain crucial. Ray Hair, international president of the AFM, said in a statement provided to Billboard that “MPTF is well-positioned to expand its mission throughout the U.S. and Canada for many years to come.” Other prominent supporters include the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), whose chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier and COO Michele Ballantyne said in a joint statement: “RIAA Members are honored to support this dynamic, living testament to the tapestry of American music.”
Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, also weighed in with a statement to Billboard regarding the MPTF, saying, “Your commitment towards supporting musicians, making music a part of every child’s life, and adding to public knowledge about music, is unmatched.”
Beck feels his music industry experience has been beneficial in handling the demands of his position. He recalls working in the major label distribution branch system pre-2000 when those companies had sales offices “around the country, and each had a special relationship with their accounts and with the markets that they worked in. I find that’s kind of very similar to what the union locals are like.”
For his part, Beck is just happy to serve. Referencing the Fund’s mission statement, he sees music as a unifying and healing force.
“I’m very grateful that opportunity came my way,” he says. “Where I am in life, there’s no better way to do things than to be working with people who are trying to make some nice community events happen. As divided as people can be, you put them in a little park together [for a musical event] and they all seem to have a good time and speak nicely to everybody else.”
Global music sales rose for the eighth consecutive year in 2022, with recorded music revenues growing in every world market and across almost all formats, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) “Global Music Report 2023.”
Total revenues climbed to $26.2 billion, a rise of 9% on the previous year. Although that rate of growth is half 2021 year’s rise, when revenues were up 18.5% year-on-year, IFPI said it was still the fourth highest growth level the recorded music business has seen this millennium.
The leading driver of growth was a 10.3% rise in paid-for streaming subscription revenue, which totaled $12.7 billion last year. IFPI reports there were 589 million users of paid subscription accounts at the end of 2022, up from 523 million in the previous 12 months and 443 million in 2020.
Streaming (including paid subscription and advertising-supported) now accounts for 67% of sales across the music industry, up from 65% in 2021 and 62% in 2020, although rate of growth is slowing.
In 2021, streaming revenues rocketed 24% to $16.9 billion. Last year, total revenues streaming revenues increased 11.5% to $17.5 billion.
Despite the dominance of streaming, physical music formats continue to be resilient with CD and vinyl revenues increasing for a second consecutive year — albeit at a slower rate than 2021’s 16.1% rise, fueled by a post-pandemic boom in home music purchases — to $4.6 billion, up 4% on the prior year.
Within physical music revenues, last year’s growth in CD sales proved to be a fleeting uplift with revenues falling 0.4% in 2022. Vinyl revenues shot up 17.1% (IFPI did not provide revenue numbers for CD or vinyl sales).
In terms of market share, physical accounted for 17.5% of the overall market last year (down from 19.2% in 2021) with Asia generating almost half (49.8%) of all global revenues for physical music sales.
Performance rights revenue climbed 8.6% to $2.5 billion, representing 9.4% of global revenues, while sync income was up 22.3% to $0.6 billion, representing 2.4%.
Downloads and what IFPI classifies as other (non-streaming) digital formats was once again the only format channel to record a decline, falling 11.7% to $900 million and representing just 3.6% of the global market.
As per previous year’s reports, IFPI uses current exchange rates when compiling its Global Music Report, restating all historic local currency values on an annual basis. Market values therefore vary retrospectively as a result of foreign currency movements, says IFPI, which represents more than 8,000 record company members worldwide, including all three major labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
Thanks to sustained growth in streaming, global recorded music revenues have now reached their highest level since 1999 — when music sales totaled $22.3 billion – on an absolute dollar basis, not accounting for inflation, reports IFPI. Piracy and declining physical sales saw the market bottom out at $13.1 billion in 2014.
“Record companies’ investment and innovation has helped make music even more globally interconnected than ever,” said IFPI chief executive Frances Moore in a statement, accompanying the report.
As the music economy grows, however, “so too do the areas in which record companies must work to ensure that the value of the music artists are creating is recognized and returned,” Moore warned.
Referring to the ongoing threat of music piracy, she said the challenges for record companies, artists and creators are “becoming increasingly complex as a greater number of actors seek to benefit from music whilst playing no part in investing in and developing it.”
Writing in the report’s foreword, Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge said “to succeed, music’s future must be artist-centric.” He called on the industry to focus on building a “robust, growing and sustainable music ecosystem” in which “creators of all music content, whether in the form of audio or short-form video, are fairly compensated and can therefore thrive for decades to come.”
IFPI’s Global Music Report 2023 Topline Figures:
Global music sales up 9% to $26.2 billion
Streaming subscription revenues up 10.3% to $12.7 billion
Total streaming revenues (including paid and ad-supported) up 11.5% to $17.5 billion
Physical revenues up 4% to $4.6 billion
Performance rights revenues rise 8.6% to $2.5 billion
589 million paid music subscribers
Streaming’s share of global music sales: 67%
In terms of world markets, the U.S. retains its number one position with music sales growing 4.8% and exceeding $10 billion in recorded music sales for the first time.
Japan holds steady in second place with sales growing 5.4% in 2022. The third and fourth-biggest markets for recorded music remain the United Kingdom (+5.4%) and Germany (+2.2%), respectively.
The rest of the top 10 is made up of China (+28.4%), which becomes a top five global market for the first time, France (+7.7%), South Korea, Canada (+8.1%), Brazil (+15.4%) and Australia (+8.1%).
IFPI said that music sales were up in all 62 of the global markets it tracks. The organization’s free-to-access report does not provide market-by-market revenue breakdowns.
On a regional basis, it was a similar story with revenues from the U.S. and Canada region up 5%, while Latin America – where streaming now accounts for 85.2% of the market — saw growth of 25.9%
The fastest-growing market region in 2022 was Sub-Saharan Africa, which recorded a 34.7% rise in music sales, largely driven by the booming music market in South Africa, where sales were up by more than 30% year-on-year.
Revenues in Middle East and North Africa, last year’s fastest growing region, rose by almost 24%, driven almost entirely by streaming, which has 95.5% share of the region’s recorded music market – the highest share for any region worldwide, reports IFPI.
Revenues in Europe, the second-largest recorded music region in the world after the U.S. and Canada, grew by 7.5% — compared to the prior year’s growth rate of 15.4% — driven by gains in Europe’s three biggest markets, the U.K., Germany and France. Asia grew by 15.4%.
Bad Bunny has been hit with a $40 million lawsuit by an ex-girlfriend who alleges he used a voice recording of her uttering the now-famous catchphrase “Bad Bunny Baby” in two of his songs without her consent.
The lawsuit, filed by Carliz De La Cruz Hernández in Puerto Rico, claims that she never legally agreed for her voice recording to be used in Bad Bunny’s songs, live performances, radio, television or any other form of media. She alleges that his use of the recording constitutes a violation of moral rights under U.S. copyright law — under which sampling any amount of a sound recording requires a license — and a similar law in Puerto Rico known as Ley de Derechos Morales de Autor. She also claims that it violates the Ley del Derecho sobre la Propia Imagen, or right to self-image, with De La Cruz Hernández arguing that the unauthorized use of the recording commercially exploits her voice and identity.
According to the filing, De La Cruz Hernández and Bad Bunny (born Benito A. Martinez Ocasio) began their relationship in 2011 when they both worked at the Econo Supermarket in Vega Baja, Benito’s hometown in Puerto Rico. At the time, the then-aspiring artist was constantly churning out tracks — and according to De La Cruz Hernández, he often asked for her opinion on his music. She would offer feedback in addition to helping him organize his performances, rundowns and contracts, according to the complaint.
In 2015, at Benito’s request, De La Cruz Hernández says she recorded the phrase “Bad Bunny Baby” via the voice memo app on her phone. The future tagline first publicly appeared on the 2016 track “Pa’ Ti” featuring Bryant Myers, on which De La Cruz Hernández argues that her voice was used without her legal authorization and without credit. Her voice can be heard at the start of the Latin trap song and again at the 2:40 mark.
De La Cruz Hernández’s voice is again featured on the track “Dos Mil 16″ off Bad Bunny’s blockbuster 2022 album, Un Verano Sin Ti, also without her authorization, the complaint states. She claims that Bad Bunny’s representatives sent her a contract on May 5, 2022, the day before the record’s official release, offering her $20,000 for the use of her voice. The next day, before reaching any settlement, the album dropped with “Dos Mil 16” on the tracklist, she alleges.
“Dos Mil 16” peaked at No. 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at No. 16 on the Hot Latin Songs chart. The track has more than 60 million views on YouTube.
De La Cruz Hernández is also suing Rimas Entertainment, the label that released both “Pa Ti” and Un Verano Sin Ti.
Billboard reached out to Rimas and Bad Bunny for comment but did not hear back at press time.
The country’s two leading concert companies, Live Nation and AEG, are at odds over how Congress should address the future of ticketing after a disagreement over Taylor Swift’s record-breaking The Eras Tour.
Long before the pop star’s Nov. 15 sale dominated the news cycle, where hundreds of thousands of Swift fans experienced service disruptions that kept them from buying the tickets they wanted, the two companies had signed an agreement that many thought might take AEG out of the ticketing business entirely. In 2021, when AEG announced that its facility management division ASM had struck a deal to make Ticketmaster its preferred ticketing partner, many assumed that meant the company was on the way to shutting down its own ticking platform, AXS Tickets.
Instead, ASM’s contract with the Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster would pave the way for an expansion of AEG’s AXS, thanks to a provision in Ticketmaster’s exclusive agreement that granted AEG the right to use AXS to sell tickets to AEG-promoted shows at ASM venues, sources tell Billboard. AEG tours like Kane Brown, Elton John and Luke Combs could opt out of using Ticketmaster when playing ASM-client venues such as Soldier Field in Chicago, U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis and Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz., and use AXS instead. This marked the largest carve-out in Ticketmaster’s exclusivity contract to date, potentially allowing hundreds of arenas, stadiums and performing arts centers to use AXS for the first time, like the new Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas — the highest grossing stadium on Billboard’s 2022 year-end Boxscore chart.
The provision was a sort of double victory for AEG, Live Nation’s leading competitor: The company was able to leverage its control over 350 ASM venues to get those clients large payouts for re-signing with Ticketmaster without forsaking its own ticketing service. AEG officials had also hoped this might mark the beginning of a more open ticketing ecosystem away from the sorts of exclusive deals that have helped Ticketmaster gain such dominance in the space. But less than two years later, AEG and Live Nation find themselves at odds, divided over the handling of Swift’s The Eras Tour.
AEG is now refusing to join a coalition of music companies supporting Live Nation’s Fair Ticketing campaign, a piece of proposed anti-scalper legislation born out of the bot attack on Ticketmaster’s Nov. 15 presale for Swift’s tour. While Universal Music Group, Red Light Management, Irving and Jeffrey Azoff, and all four major talent agencies are backing the FAIR Ticketing reforms to ban scalping practices like “speculative” ticket selling and mandating all-in pricing across all ticketing marketplaces nationally, AEG has been taking a different approach to what they see as some of ticketing’s biggest problems. Sources tell Billboard that AEG executives have been quietly lobbying the Department of Justice to investigate Ticketmaster’s use of exclusive ticketing contracts to lock up the ticket market as a possible violation of its consent decree governing its merger with Live Nation in 2010. AEG leadership is also lobbying politicians to include restrictions on such exclusive ticketing practices in new legislation that could be introduced as soon as this week.
Sources say Live Nation executives have been careful not to engage with AEG publicly about its exclusivity agreements. Privately, they have accused AEG of trying to have it both ways, accepting the money that comes with exclusive ticketing contracts, while trying to expand AXS ticketing beyond the ASM deal into all NFL stadiums ticketed by Ticketmaster.
“This is a bad look for them,” one source at Ticketmaster tells Billboard.
Since Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 and AEG launched its own ticketing platform in 2012, both companies have found they can earn more from the concerts they promote if they also control the ticketing, collecting more fees for themselves, while keeping data generated by the concert in house. The additional revenue for a promoter like AEG could be substantial, especially for an artist like Swift, who sold a total of 2.4 million tickets for The Eras Tour.
With Swift’s tour, sources say AXS was expecting to handle some of the ticketing under the ASM-Ticketmaster provision, since AEG was a co-promoter with partner Messina Touring Group. ASM managed five stadiums, representing 12 shows on the 52-date trek, and sources say AXS officials were hoping its ties to the tour could lead to it getting some, if not all of the tour. Except that Ticketmaster executives said their exclusive contracts with more than a dozen NFL teams (and the venues they own) superseded AXS’ claim. Under that reading of the deal, two of the 12 ASM dates — a pair of concerts at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. — would be ticketed by SeatGeek under its exclusive deal with the Arizona Cardinals. Making matters worse, two of ASM’s management clients decided to partner with Ticketmaster for the sale.
Down to just five shows at two stadiums, AEG dropped the matter. According to a source, AEG executives have since spoken with the Department of Justice, encouraging them to look at Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s use of exclusive contracts as anti-competitive.
Relations only worsened in the days following The Eras Tour presale. After the fiasco, Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei appeared on CNBC to defend Ticketmaster and cited the company’s arrangement with AEG in response to claims of monopolistic behavior. “AEG, who is the promoter for Taylor Swift, chose to use us because, in reality, we are the largest and most effective ticket seller in the world,” he said. “Even our competitors want to come on our platform.” AEG leadership was quick to respond with a statement, saying the promoter had no choice but to use Ticketmaster. “Ticketmaster’s exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on The Eras Tour required us to ticket through their system,” an AEG spokesperson said. “We didn’t have a choice.”
AEG hopes its private lobbying of politicians and anti-trust officials will lead to regulatory change that could include abolishing exclusive ticketing contracts in the United States and ultimately move toward an industry more similar to Europe, where promoters generally don’t sign exclusive ticketing deals and work with multiple partners to sell tickets.
Despite the disagreement, the ASM-Ticketmaster deal remains in place, and AEG officials have had success convincing buildings like the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and the Quicken Home Arena in Cleveland to avoid exclusive ticketing agreements and remain open to multiple systems.
Live Nation and AEG declined to comment for this story.
Amazon plans to eliminate 9,000 more jobs in the next few weeks, CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to staff on Monday.
The job cuts would mark the second largest round of layoffs in the company’s history, adding to the 18,000 employees the tech giant said it would lay off in January. The company’s workforce doubled during the pandemic, however, in the midst of a hiring surge across almost the entire tech sector.
Tech companies have announced tens of thousands of job cuts this year.
In the memo, Jassy said the second phase of the company’s annual planning process completed this month led to the additional job cuts. He said Amazon will still hire in some strategic areas.
“Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago. The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible,” Jassy said.
The job cuts announced Monday will hit profitable areas for the company including its cloud computing unit AWS and its burgeoning advertising business. Twitch, the gaming platform Amazon owns, will also see some layoffs as well as Amazon’s PXT organizations, which handle human resources and other functions.
Prior layoffs had also hit PXT, the company’s stores division, which encompasses its e-commerce business as well as company’s brick-and-mortar stores such as Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, and other departments such as the one that runs the virtual assistant Alexa.
Earlier this month, the company said it would pause construction on its headquarters building in northern Virginia, though the first phase of that project will open this June with 8,000 employees.
Like other tech companies, including Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet, Amazon ramped up hiring during the pandemic to meet the demand from homebound Americans that were increasingly buying stuff online to keep themselves safe from the virus.
Amazon’s workforce, in warehouses and offices, doubled to more than 1.6 million people in about two years. But demand slowed as the worst of the pandemic eased. The company began pausing or cancelling its warehouse expansion plans last year.
Amid growing anxiety over the potential for a recession, Amazon in the past few months shut down a subsidiary that’s been selling fabrics for nearly 30 years and shuttered its hybrid virtual, in-home care service Amazon Care among other cost-cutting moves.
Jassy said Monday given the uncertain economy and the “uncertainty that exists in the near future,” the company has chosen to be more streamlined.
He said the teams that will be impacted by the latest round of layoffs are not done making final decisions on which roles will be eliminated. The company plans to finalize those decisions by mid to late April and notify those who will be laid off.
MUMBAI – Spotify has removed Indian record label Zee Music Company’s catalog after negotiations for a renewal of their licensing agreement fell through, Billboard has learned. As a result, the No.1 track on Spotify in India over the past two weeks, “Apna Bana Le” from the soundtrack to the 2022 Hindi film Bhediya, is no longer available on the platform.
“Spotify and Zee Music have been unable to reach a licensing agreement,” Spotify says in a statement sent to Billboard. “Throughout these negotiations, Spotify has tried to find creative ways to strike a deal with Zee Music and will continue our good faith negotiations in hopes of finding a mutually agreeable solution soon.”
Anurag Bedi, the chief business officer at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, declined to comment.
Apart from Spotify, Zee Music Company is also absent from Gaana, which it disappeared from in 2022 only a few months before the Indian audio-streaming platform became a subscription-only service.
On March 14, the last day its releases could be streamed on Spotify, Zee Music had over two dozen tracks on Spotify’s Daily Top 200 Songs chart for India. These included long-running Bollywood hits such as “Maiyya Mainu” from Jersey (2022), the title tracks from Kalank (2019) and Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas (2019), “Makhna” from Drive (2019), “Namo Namo” from Kedarnath (2018) and “Zaalima” from Raees (2017).
The label’s catalog also includes soundtracks to films distributed by sister company Zee Studios, such as the 2018 rom-com Veere Di Wedding and the 2019 hip-hop-centric Gully Boy.
Zee Music Company, which is part of the Zee Entertainment Enterprises media conglomerate, is one of India’s largest domestic record labels. Its YouTube subscriber base of 93.6 million makes it the second most-subscribed-to Indian music channel after global leader T-Series, which boasts 239 million subscribers.
When musician Tyler Armes first heard Post Malone’s “Circles” in 2019, he claims he immediately texted Dre London, Malone’s manager. In the texts, Armes claimed he had been in the studio on the August 2018 night the song had come together – and that he believed he had played a key role in creating it.
“I was not just someone hanging out in the room,” Armes texted, according to later legal documents. “I was part of the writing process. The entire song (minus the lyrics other than ‘circles’) was laid down that night with the 3 of us in the room together, working together.” A few days later, London allegedly responded: “Just showed Posty the message. He said he remembers. U played a tune on the bass then he played more of it after.”
“Circles” later became a smash hit. The song, “backed by sunny acoustic guitars, swirling percussion and infectious melodies,” reached the top spot on the Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks in November 2019 before ultimately spending 61 weeks on the chart.
But now, four years after those texts, Armes and Malone are headed to a Los Angeles federal courthouse this week for a closely-watched jury trial over that fateful night. Expected to feature testimony from the star himself, the trial will pose tricky questions to jurors – about who’s technically in charge during a studio jam session, and who exactly gets the resulting songwriting credits.
Lawyers for Armes say he clearly did enough to own part of the copyright to “Circles,” and that Malone’s “bad faith refusal” to grant him credit has severely harmed his music career. Malone’s lawyers, meanwhile, say the allegations are “utterly baseless” – and that Armes is just the latest plaintiff to “come out of the woodwork” seeking an “unearned windfall” from a hit song.
“Significant Contributions”
Armes, best known as a member of the Canadian rap rock band Down With Webster, filed his lawsuit in April 2020, seeking a ruling that he was the rightful co-creator of “Circles.” In addition to naming Malone (Austin Richard Post) as a defendant, the lawsuit also named “Circles” collaborator Frank Dukes and Universal Music Group.
In his complaint, Armes claimed he had gone to the studio that night at the urging of Malone’s people, and that Malone at one point had said explicitly: “Let’s write a tune!”
“From approximately 2:00 a.m. on August 8, 2018 until 9:00 a.m. that morning, Armes, Post and Dukes worked together in the studio,” his lawyers wrote in their complaint. “Armes and Dukes co-wrote the chords for the song on the keyboard, and Armes co-wrote and had significant input in the bassline for the song. Armes also had input on the guitar parts in the song, including co-writing the guitar melody which is played in the introduction to the song and which repeats throughout the song.”
After the song was released and Armes reached out, he says Malone offered to give him a 5 percent share of the publishing royalties. But when he tried to negotiate for a better deal, he says the star’s people revoked the offer and refused to give him anything.
“Defendants’ refusal to credit Armes … has resulted in significant harm to Armes’ reputation, career and cost him a host of opportunities,” his lawyer wrote. “Songwriters and composers work their entire lives to create a commercially successful and critically acclaimed song like [‘Circles’].”
Read Armes’ entire complaint here.
“Unearned Windfall”
On the same day that Armes filed his lawsuit, Malone sued him right back – asking a federal judge for a ruling that Armes “did not write or author any portion of the ‘Circles’ composition, and he is not entitled to any of the revenue from the ‘Circles’ composition.”
Malone’s lawyers admitted that Armes had been in the room that night, but said he had not made any serious contributions to the song. And they pointed out that the star and other writers then held subsequent sessions in which they continued to work on the song without Armes present.
“It is an age-old story in the music business that when a song earns the type of runaway success that ‘Circles’ has garnered, an individual will come out of the woodwork falsely claim to take credit for the song, and demand unwarranted and unearned windfall profits from the song,” Malone’s lawyers wrote. “This lawsuit arises from such a story.”
In later motions seeking to end the case without a trial, Malone’s attorneys argued more specifically about the “fatal flaws” in Armes’ allegations. They said his contributions to the song were merely commonplace musical building blocks like chord progressions, meaning they were not sufficiently “original” to be protected by copyright law. And they said that he had not exercised enough “control” over the studio session to count as a co-author.
“Armes admitted he had no control over whether any of his creative suggestions would be incorporated by Post and Dukes into the ‘Circles’ composition,” Malone’s lawyers wrote. “Armes’s contention that because he was present for one early session while Dukes and Post were creating the ‘Circles’ composition … and because he played some instruments there and offered some verbal musical suggestions, he is entitled to joint authorship, is simply incorrect under governing law.”
Read Malone’s entire argument here.
“Shared Equal Control”
Those arguments didn’t sway the judge. In April 2022, U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright declined to end the case and instead sent it to trial, ruling that Armes might ultimately be able to persuade a jury that he deserved to own a piece of “Circles.”
As for the originality of Armes’s creative contributions, the judge said a jury might look beyond simple individual elements and instead analyze the song more broadly: “A reasonable juror could conclude that all three collaborators took part in these decisions and that the combination of these decisions created something that is not stock or commonplace, despite the fact that it may contain stock or otherwise uncopyrightable building blocks.”
And, just as importantly, the judge said it was unclear whether Malone and Dukes had sole control over what had been included in the song.
“While Dukes may have controlled the laptop, nothing suggests that he or Post possessed any special veto or decision-making power that Armes did not,” Judge Wright wrote in his ruling. “Armes’s evidence, if credited, supports the finding that the three musicians shared equal control in the session, making nonhierarchical contributions to a unitary whole.”
Read Judge Wright’s entire decision here.
“Make Swiss Cheese of Copyrights”
Ahead of the upcoming trial, Malone’s attorneys have sharply disputed one unusual aspect of Judge Wright’s ruling last year.
In the decision, the judge said the upcoming trial would technically only deal with the ownership of an unfinished “session” song created that August night, and not with the final “commercial” version of “Circles.” But he stressed that a verdict for Armes would still entitle him to substantial royalties from the hit song, since the final version was based on that earlier jam session tune.
A month later, Malone’s lawyers argued that Judge Wright’s approach was simply not how the creation of a copyrighted work is supposed to be analyzed. A final song is a final song, they said, and any earlier versions are merely part of the artistic process – not their own copyrighted creations.
“Splintering a single, final integrated work into many different ‘works’ at its various stages of creation would impermissibly make Swiss cheese of copyrights,” Malone’s lawyers wrote, quoting from a legal precedent that used that analogy. “Characterizing a single musical composition as derivative of its successive writing sessions preceding its final form raises the specter of an endless series of derivative works within one song.”
Lawyers for Armes argued back that the judge’s approach was just fine, and Judge Wright later brushed aside such critiques. But the “Swiss cheese” issue could very well arise again in the courthouse during this week’s trial – and, if Malone loses, will almost certainly serve as a key avenue for him to challenge the verdict at a federal appeals court.
The Courtroom Fight Ahead
The trial, taking place at the U.S. federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, will kick off with jury selection on Tuesday morning. It’s expected to run for four days, meaning we could expect a verdict on Friday or early next week.
Though a witness list hasn’t been published, it will likely include Armes, London, Dukes and various others involved in the events of the case, who will testify about what they recall about the session and the days surrounding it. Both sides will also call expert witnesses to testify about complicated technical questions about music and industry practices.
Malone himself will also be there. Back in August, during back-and-forth over potential trial dates, his lawyers confirmed that star will take the witness stand to help defeat Armes’ allegations: “He fully intends to appear to refute plaintiff’s claims.”
The star will be represented by David A. Steinberg, Gabriella N. Ismaj, Christine Lepera and Jeffrey M. Movit of the law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, an elite music litigation team whose members have defended Katy Perry, Dua Lipa, Jay-Z and other stars in similar cases.
Armes will be repped by Allison S. Hart and Kelsey J. Leeker from the law firm Lavely & Singer, a well-known Hollywood litigation boutique that has represented a slew of A-listers in defamation cases, contract disputes and other legal battles.
Three men were found guilty Monday of the 2018 killing of star rapper XXXTentacion, who was shot outside a South Florida motorcycle shop while being robbed of $50,000.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Michael Boatwright, 28, Dedrick Williams, 26, and Trayvon Newsome, 24, were all found guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery by a jury that deliberated a little more than seven days. They will receive mandatory life sentences at a later date.
The defendants showed little emotion as each stood and was handcuffed by a bailiff.
During the monthlong trial, prosecutors linked the men to the June 18, 2018, shooting outside Riva Motorsports in suburban Fort Lauderdale through extensive surveillance video taken inside and outside the store, plus cellphone videos they took that showed them flashing fistfuls of $100 bills hours after the slaying.
Prosecutors also had the testimony of a fourth man, Robert Allen, a former friend of the defendants who said he participated in the robbery. He pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder. He has not been sentenced pending the conclusion of this trial. He could get anywhere between time served, meaning he could soon be released, and life, depending partly on how prosecutors perceive his assistance.
Defense attorneys accused Allen of being a liar motivated by avoiding a life sentence. They also said prosecutors and detectives did a poor investigation that didn’t look at other possible suspects, including the Canadian rap star Drake; he and XXXTentacion had an online feud.
Twice this week, the jury asked to review text messages from Boatwright, whom prosecutors identified as the shooter, from the day of the shooting. A printout from prosecutors shows that from the time he woke up about 10:30 a.m. until 3 p.m., about an hour before the shooting, he sent 17 to various people, including one about getting a car. Prosecutors say the SUV used in the shooting was rented from a woman through a phone app. He then stopped texting for about two hours.
About an hour after the shooting, he sent a text saying, “Tell my brother I got the money for the new phone.” Minutes after that, he sent someone a screenshot of a news story saying XXXTentacion had been shot.
XXXTentacion, whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, had just left Riva Motorsports with a friend when his BMW was blocked by an SUV that swerved in front.
Surveillance video showed two masked gunmen emerging and confronting the 20-year-old singer at the driver’s window, and one shot him repeatedly. They then grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag containing cash XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank, got back into the SUV and sped away. The friend was not harmed.
Newsome was accused of being the other gunman. Williams was accused of being the driver of the SUV, with Allen also inside.
Allen testified that the men set out that day to commit robberies and went to the motorcycle shop to buy Williams a mask. There they spotted the rapper and decided to make him their target. Allen and Williams went inside the shop to confirm it was him. They then went back to the SUV they had rented, waited for XXXTentacion to emerge and ambushed him, according to testimony.
The rapper, who pronounced his name “Ex ex ex ten-ta-see-YAWN,” was a platinum-selling rising star who tackled issues including prejudice and depression in his songs. He also drew criticism over bad behavior and multiple arrests, including charges that he severely beat and abused his girlfriend.
Associated Press reporter Terry Spencer contributed to this report.
It’s telling that one of the most emotional moments during the Country Radio Seminar came when Darius Rucker and Brad Paisley led a large cast of artists in a cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain” at the close of the Universal Music Group Nashville (UMGN) showcase at the Ryman Auditorium on March 14.
Just the day before, Garth Brooks had addressed the divisiveness in modern America and encouraged country broadcasters to use their place at the microphone to bring people together: “Unify. Find common ground. Amplify our similarities instead of our differences.”
In “Purple Rain,” the assemblage demonstrated what that looked like, bridging genres and backgrounds to deliver a song that obliquely embraces connection as the world comes to an end. The arrangement included fiddle and Dobro, a significant cross-format augmentation of a song with anthemic pop/rock qualities. Rucker and Dalton Dover brought Black voices to the performance, notable in a genre that went decades with Charley Pride as its lone African American star. And covering Prince meant that Paisley — who had performed a dark track about opioid addiction less than a half-hour before — was now playing an extended guitar solo on a tune originated by a man who had died of an opioid overdose.
Just as important was the mass of people onstage: Vince Gill, Tyler Hubbard, Parker McCollum, Kassi Ashton, Sam Hunt and Catie Offerman were among those lined up behind the lead voices. And while most of the nation has regained some level of normalcy after the pandemic, every sign of people feeling safe to get together remains heartening.
A year ago, CRS attendees were chided for slow-moving charts and a lack of individuality. The format hasn’t changed significantly since then, though a committee is working to resolve those issues.
Meanwhile, 2023’s three-day conference, based at the Omni Nashville Hotel, found programmers in seemingly better spirits. Some 57% of country listeners believe the music is better than it was just a few years ago, according to a NuVoodoo study. Even 52% of consumers who have been country fans for over 10 years — the kind of listener most likely to complain that current music pales in comparison with the good old days — say the new music is better. Jacobs Media president Fred Jacobs, in a “Fred Talk” titled “The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be,” also noted that 62% of respondents in a 2023 survey cited their appreciation of the on-air talent as a motivating factor for listening to AM/FM. That exceeds the 55% of respondents who cited the music as a contributing factor to their radio consumption.
Stations would be wise, Jacobs suggested, to develop on-air talent that successfully connects with the audience.
As technology becomes ever more dominant in daily life, it appears that interactions with people have greater value. Syndicated Audacy personality Josh “Bru” Brubaker, a Los Angeles-based 26-year-old whose radio background and TikTok skills have built a following in the millions, said in an “Okay Boomer” panel that simply being real goes a long way.
“Vulnerability and relatability has never been more important to our audiences, especially in Gen Z,” he said. “That’s something that we’ve been doing in radio ever since it’s been around, so play on our strengths. I think we overthink a lot of things. But those core things are what Gen Z is looking for. And we can use that to reinvigorate our audiences.”
That word “reinvigorate” is important, given that time spent listening to radio has dropped since the advent of streaming services. Brubaker recalled meeting a young fan who asked him, “What is radio?”
The medium, once dominant in American entertainment, faces a crowded field that includes audio and video streaming, satellite radio and broadcast and cable TV, plus streaming TV services and online games. The future will only grow more complicated.
Automobiles, where radio once dominated, are undergoing significant change. Jacobs showed images of pillar-to-pillar dashboards that manufacturers are designing with more in-car options than ever. FM radio, he noted, will need to up its visual game — taking advantage of logos and other graphic opportunities — to remain appealing to commuters. But AM radio faces a much bleaker future with the accelerating shift toward electric vehicles. The engines create interference problems, and AM is increasingly being booted from car interiors. Jacobs cited Ford specifically, though news site Axios indicated in a March 13 story that eight automakers — including BMW, Mazda, Tesla and Volkswagen — have dropped AM radio from their electric cars.
“After hanging around with automakers for the past 15 years, I don’t think they give a shit,” said Jacobs. “I think they’re going to make whatever they’re going to make, and AM radio is not a part of the future for them.”
One other change that could create structural issues for broadcasters is the adaptation of subscriptions. Detroit is toying with recurring payments, Jacobs said, that would bill owners monthly for heated seats, map updates or driving assistants. And he believes over-the-air radio could become yet another optional service rather than a standard feature.
Country’s future, as always, was on display at CRS. Mackenzie Carpenter infused ultra-Southern phrasing in the hooky “Don’t Mess With Exes” during the Big Machine showcase. Avery Anna fielded a tuneful kiss-off with “Narcissist” on Warner Music Nashville’s lunchtime stage, and Offerman applied a warm, intimate voice to the confessional “I Killed a Man” at the UMGN show.
Programmers were encouraged repeatedly during CRS panels to take risks and “think outside the box.” Much of the industry, it appears, is of a mind to simply make the box larger. The genre’s widening cultural representation and increasing blend of music styles suggest that country and its real-world stories have the potential to fulfill Brooks’ challenge, to become a unifying voice.
Whether that potential is fully realized is a question that can only be answered in that uncertain future.
Subscribe to Billboard Country Update, the industry’s must-have source for news, charts, analysis and features. Sign up for free delivery every weekend.
Warner Chappell Music (WCM) and Limited Edition Music have teamed up for a new publishing partnership, with a mission to sign and develop emerging songwriters in a range of genres.
Emmyn Calleiro, singer and songwriter with Fueled by Ramen / DCD2 Record-signed pop-punk band Games We Play, along with rising country artist Bailey Callahan, are the first signings through the new alliance — Limited Edition Music.
Greg Sowders, WCM’s senior vp of A&R and catalog will continue in his current position while also leading Limited Edition Music, which will sign acts in the alternative, rock, pop and alternative country spaces. Sowders is joined in the leadership role by former WCM A&R executive Marc Wilson.
“Greg has been a key fixture at Warner Chappell for more than three decades and has dedicated his career to building out a star-studded alternative and rock roster,” comments Guy Moot, WCM co-chair and CEO. “This is the perfect opportunity for him to continue to lead those efforts while also working with more emerging writers alongside Marc.”
During his time with the major music publisher, Sowders has signed and worked with such artists and writers as Twenty One Pilots, Greta Van Fleet, Travis Barker, Paramore, Tyler Childers, Billy Corgan, Portugal. The Man, Deftones, All Time Low, Orville Peck and Nickelback, and others.
His career in music began in 1981 on the other side of the table, as the drummer for Los Angeles alternative country pioneers The Long Ryders, with whom he continues to perform.
Wilson, meanwhile, boasts almost 20 years’ experience developing songwriters and artists. During his stint with WCM, he worked with the likes of Lizzo, Steve Aoki, Ian Kirkpatrick, Sean Douglas, Sam DeRosa, Alec Benjamin and others. In 2020, he launched United Songs Entertainment, which exclusively manages songwriters and producers, and currently represents Cate Downey and Zoë Moss.
Adds Ryan Press, WCM president of North America: “Greg is one of the best creatives in the business and serves as a true partner to his songwriters. I’m super proud to be able to support him and Marc, who I’ve also worked with for a long time, and continue to nurture the next generation of hitmakers together.”
The partnership, announced today, closely follows a SXSW discussion on the future of music publishing and the new songwriter economy, entitled “Music Publishing in the New Songwriter Economy.” The session featured Moot and Billboard editorial director Hannah Karp as guest speakers.